Class times will move forward 25 minutes for the 2011-2012 academic year, and a 7:30 a.m. class will be added, according to Phyllis Peres, the vice provost and interim dean for Academic Affairs.
A new 7:30 a.m. class will run until 8:45 a.m. and will be available on the Monday/Thursday, Tuesday/Friday schedule.
The Office of the Provost announced the proposed changes at a Faculty Senate meeting Sept. 29. They hope these changes will encourage students to take morning classes and will better accommodate graduate students.
The new schedule will have classes at the following times for M/TH, T/F classes: • 7:30 - 8:45 a.m. • 8:55 - 10:10 a.m. • 10:20 - 11:35 a.m. • 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. • 1:10 - 2:25 p.m. • 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. • 4:00 - 5:15 p.m. • 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. • 8:10 - 10:40 p.m.
Wednesday classes will run from:
• 8:55 - 11:35 a.m. • 11:45 a.m. - 2:25 p.m. • 2:35 - 5:15 p.m. • 5:20 - 6:35 p.m. • 6:45 - 8:00 p.m. • 8:10 - 10:40 p.m.
“One of the issues has been that the current schedule of classes has a first slot that is considered by many undergraduates to be too early, and therefore it did not ensure full utilization,” Peres said in an e-mail. “By creating opportunities for scheduling at 7:30 a.m. that may fit the needs of some graduate and professional programs as well as those of some undergraduates, the result is a second slot that begins at 8:55 a.m.”
Peres said the Office of the Provost does not anticipate the 7:30 a.m. class to be very popular with undergraduates.
“We are not expecting it to have heavy usage, but we are expecting that it will increase the usage and the desirability of the 8:55 [a.m. class],” she said. “So we will have six time slots during the day that will now have more usage around the clock.”
Classes after 5 p.m. will remain at their original time, with the exception of some graduate level courses, which can last two or two and a half hours, according to Eric Goldstein, the Student Government director of Academic Affairs.
These changes will get rid of the 40-minute gap that currently exists between 3:35 classes ending at 4:50 p.m. and classes starting at 5:30 p.m., allowing for a more efficient use of the school day, Goldstein said.
The time adjustments were made as a solution to the lack of classroom space on campus during the middle of the day.
“This new schedule of undergraduate class options, including a more viable morning time slot for undergraduates (8:55 a.m.) provides a wider array of class offerings across the entire day through more robust classroom availability,” Peres said in the e-mail.
By pushing forward class times, the Office of the Provost also hopes more students will be willing to take morning classes.
“What this does is it makes that 8:30 [a.m.] block a little more tolerable,” Goldstein said. “The hope is more students will take classes then.”
An announcement to the campus community is expected this week, according to Peres.
amooney@theeagleonline.com
